Smoke filled the Grill 454 Wednesday as rookies of the Commack Fire Department fought a mock blaze to get a taste of what fighting an actual fire might be like.
Before the building is torn down, the department was able to create the feel of real fire in the former restaurant, complete with smoke, darkness and two victims, to help 20 rookie firefighters build their skills on an actual commercial building.
Fire Commissioner Pat Fazio said that it’s not often that the firefighters get a real building to work with for training, but the owners of Miller’s Ale House were happy to give the volunteers the place, as they are planning to tear down the building this week.
A fog machine helped fill the building with thick smoke, which makes a firefighter virtually blind once inside.
“We want to make it so you can’t see because in a real fire, you can’t see anything,” Fazio said.
When the department gave this writer a chance to get into gear and go inside, it was a chance to see what the volunteers really go through, minus the 200-degree temperatures from actual flames.
Crawling through the smoky building on one’s knees, about the only thing a volunteer can see is the person in front of him or her, and glimpses of light from the blaze– in Wednesday’s case, it was a blinking flashlight, since no actual fire could be used.
Feeling for doors, and using their equipment to search the floor for victims, the firefighters scour the building. In Wednesday’s scenario, the first victim, who was a 200-pound dummy, had collapsed behind a bathroom door, forcing the rookie volunteers to first force open the door, and then drag the victim out of the building.
The firefighters also use a ladder truck to get on top of the roof and cut holes in the ceiling to allow for the heat and smoke to escape.
To finish off, the volunteers cleared the inside of the building with the truck’s hose, which requires more than one person, just to keep from falling over from the high water pressure gushing from the spout.
“This is simulating what we really could encounter – it’s a real building, real walls and doors. It’s going to be a lot more helpful,” Erik Depasquale, captain of Ladder Company One, said.
The building will to be torn down within the next several days. Miller’s Ale House is expected to open in the fall.
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